IC a Muslim

As an ethnic, a large percentage of my time is spent thinking about ethnics and how they fare in the world at any given time. It’s my life so I like to take stock of my opportunities and limitations and am always aware of how the way in which we are viewed affects the ‘sliding door’ points of my journey. I like to check my privilege, or how little of it I have. I do this often.

After 9/11, my world was irrevocably changed. The white women I had previously consumed Lambrini and cake with (I made my best efforts to fit in) were now sat on the other side of a clear divide, and I’m not talking about the partition between us in the call centre. Those of us buying western propaganda and believing brown Muslims were to blame for everything and the rest of us; Muslims, brown people, people that look like Muslims and those with an easy tan. There were some who bitterly chided that the West was a fool to think there would never be repercussions, that the raping and looting of the rest of the world had inevitably come back to bite them in the ass but the majority of voices asked for calm, embarrassed that the actions of a few would have such devastating consequences for billions of people. This did not mean a thing to the white faces poring down on us, suddenly we were liars and not to be trusted. I will never forget the way I was instantly placed into the group that we must not believe. I didn’t practise Islam. I wore the clothes of my peers. But I was that beige-y brown people can’t quite place, the unnerving ‘other’; IC4 but I’m not sure what I’m seeing.

In the weeks that followed, I’d catch my breath every time I’d hear about a woman having her veil torn from her head. A group of men were aboard the first plane that turned the world on its axis. MEN. But there were many women who suffered because of it. Sikhs too, on account of wearing a turban that symbolises the East to many who do not have the education to distinguish between cultures never mind race (and this, their own construction). What could the non-white people of the world do except accept their fate and apologise for people they have no allegiances with? For my part, the first time I was confronted with the Al Qaeda/Taliban/Osama Bin Laden theory, I was shunned for asking for patience. On this occasion ‘due process’ ceased to exist. I was either in agreement that brown terrorists made this happen or on the side of the terrorists themselves. I lost ‘friendships’ and was devastated by this at the time. Of course, now I see them for the racist imperialist fucks they are and take comfort in the hard life lessons learnt; I was not born equal but I would make it my life’s mission to tell everybody about it. They can tout me as deluded or contrarian but every so often the world reveals its oppression of me and those like me. Or non-whites if we’re going to be honest.

Jean Charles de Menezes was one of them. If we had any hopes of restitution post 9/11 (not from guilt but from between a rock and a hard place) the events of 7/7 dashed any chance of rebuilding the fearful paranoid Britain we found ourselves in. Menezes was not Muslim or South Asian, or an Arab. He just shared a similar tone of skin. What about his appearance made him look Muslim? Whatever it was, he paid with his life. We can’t bring him back. An apology from the establishment doesn’t cut it, he is gone forever. But his legacy lives on; every time non-whites are scrutinised in this way, feared and monstered beyond all recognition. Yesterday, a self-identifying ‘high Tory’ held me up as an example of a Muslim preoccupied with her own safety, failing to take into account the young fallen soldier. This, as an example of home-grown terrorism, how people like me exist to serve only their own kind. Firstly, I am NOT a Muslim. As someone who was dragged up under a totalitarian extremist regime, I should by rights have the privilege of reviewing the particular sect I grew up under. It would be perfectly reasonable for someone like me to express a negative opinion on a subject I know far more about. But I don’t.  I understand the world for the vast space it is and I’m damned if I feed the trolls. Secondly, I exist for myself but also for the people around me. I cannot understand the individual expects to flourish and succeed unless everyone else is also comfortable. That is selfish, that is greed. It describes Imperialism perfectly and people tend to view the world as thinking and behaving in the same way they do. They are wrong. When you have less privilege, you are grateful for the bits you can enjoy and in my experience; people with less tend to share more. The less privileged you are, the greater the chance you will become political. Or cynical.

In recent weeks we have been subjected to one horrific revelation after another; Britain’s darlings are wanted in connection with the systematic sexual abuse and mistreatment of minors. A pattern was emerging; white, middle to upper class, members of the establishment and big names in the entertainment industry. We were oh so close to identifying a trend that, for the first time would hold white men of power to account. That just suddenly changed didn’t it?

Black men hacked a young white man to death in broad daylight. They killed him and then calmly put it to the camera that they were fighting back. The other white people at the scene seemed to hang about without the perceived threat they were ‘under attack’. The killers calmly spoke to a white woman, she had enough detail to give a full page interview.

White people, if you seriously were under attack, would there not have been a massacre instead of what is clearly a targeted attack against one individual?

British government and media, why is this being presented as an unprecedented attack on a serving British soldier on British soil?

Four soldiers were killed at The King’s Arms, also in Woolwich, at the barracks not far from where the soldier lost his life yesterday. It was November 1974. The bombings were part of a year long mainland campaign by the IRA’s Active Service Unity.

How can we allow them to lie to us like this?

I am standing at the intersection and blinking slowly whilst this all sinks in. I haven’t the time to sign a petition for women to feature on banknotes. I am hyper vigilant and unable to sleep because my fellow human is under attack. I am under attack. I checked out the RadFems hoping for righteous condemnation of the way in which society is manipulating the kyriarchy as we speak but nada.

I did not ask to be born. I did not ask for this colour of skin. I didn’t even ask to be British if you think about it. When I am angry, when I ask why you don’t understand, it is from this position of loneliness and frustration. I want equality for women, this is patently true. But I also want equality for the non-whites, the others, the ones who have to deal with the shit that has nothing to do with us.

Without it, there is no ‘equality’.

My Top 10 #killallmen Moments

10) Ched Evans fans don’t seem to understand justice. Football is more important #killallmen

9) Savile enquiry reveals systematic abuse of children. Turns out many knew about it but did nothing #killallmen

8) A woman dies because she is denied healthcare relating to her sex. The men in the churches make the rules that affect the women #killallmen

7) When we say #killallmen what we really mean is annihilate the human race

6) Sat in a pub enjoying drinks and deep conversation with fellow like-minded women. A quiet night is what we were after. Not whilst teh menz are around though. ‘Go away’ is met with ‘fucking ugly bitches’. Well, my friend, #killallmen

5) After a fine evening together, our women make tracks to move home. Anxiety creeps in, hope they all get home safe, hope they aren’t abused for just being women #killallmen

4) Parked at a red light the adjacent car full of hipster type knob heads attempts to sidle up right against my open window. I try to ignore them initially, as I do with all feckheads but they REALLY want my attention. I guess they weren’t expecting I want to #killallmen It stops them dead until they recover enough to hurl the usual gendered abuse.

3) Shortly after the woman in Delhi was gang raped I found myself surrounded by a group of potential rapists. They seemed to get off on my discomfort. Initially paralysed with fear, I kept myself from completely freaking out by playing #killallmen over and over in my head till members of the public came to my rescue. It gave me a focus.

2) Drunk man stumbles to get off the bus, suddenly livid at the driver for not stopping the bus for him. Being good Samaritans we tried to explain the bus was just moving to a safe place but instead we were met with “who the fuck asked you, you fucking bitches?” and spat at us. We screamed #killallmen until the man’s face looked like it was going to explode and the other women on the bus smiled gratefully at us.

1) Sat finishing drinks at closing time, big bouncer man (the tiniest of them all really) attempts to evict me and my harmless woman friend ahead of the leery beer bellied louts. He threatened to pick me up, just like you would with any bloke O_O and I told him to get fucked. He called me a cunt and threatened to spit on me, I bellowed #killallmen. It felt good.

It’s the little things that keep us going in this vicious man’s world.

Feminism for all or none at all

I wish the MRAs of the world would spontaneously combust so I could express myself without thinking of them as the only reason not to. In saying this I realise they cannot be the reason I censor myself and especially not on something so crucial. I am horrified at the ways in which the cisters are conducting themselves at the moment. I am reminded of Pastor Niemoller and his infamous words “then they came for me”. I cannot in good conscience sit by whilst my comrades are dehumanised and othered in such a casual manner. I will have to object to this establishment at every turn.

A few months back I was recruited to a group hoping to set in motion the first feminist party the UK has ever seen. My initial thoughts were this was a good thing, without putting too much thought into the detail; it would be a first and a step up in the hierarchy. This before I’d discovered the principles of Anarchy and why reform is unacceptable. I took objection to the fact that I’d been recruited and wasn’t drawn to it organically and a quick glance at the names of the mailing list recipients revealed a very white middle class bunch who were actively having to recruit members to fill equal opportunity quotas. It made me feel uneasy because of its resemblance to the patriarchy.  For example, this particular line jarred me; “people we need, previously raised: economists, women of colour, disabled women.” I am having trouble understanding why this line exists as it does and would appreciate some clarification. Of course I didn’t feel comfortable approaching this with my fellow party members, they were leading the conversation and as a minority I felt unable to object. I felt at this point that I would have to take a back seat and asked to be kept informed although I would not be actively contributing.

I have watched incredulously the ways in which they discuss anyone who is not white and cis gendered. They claim to be a party for all self-identifying women yet happily invite discussion like this:

“Self-identification does not a woman make. If this party is open to ‘self-identified ‘women’, I want nothing to do with it – in fact I will lobby and campaign hard against it. This is a travesty. Trans women are *men*. Fullstop. “

“I cannot support this as woman is not something one can self-identify as. Men can not be women.” Sic

“Whilst I do accept the spirit of this wholeheartedly, I believe expressing it in these terms is likely to bring problems up in the future. Because the power to deem a term ‘discriminatory’ or ‘offensive’  will rest on the person being addressed, there’s the potential for almost anything and everything to be found ‘discriminatory’ or ‘offensive’ on almost any ground. In other words, yes to not using offensive language, but we may have to determine for ourselves what ‘offensive’ means (within reason).

ANY OTHER EQUAL OPPS RULES YOU’D LIKE TO CHANGE TO FIT YOUR OWN AGENDA? ALSO, MUST NOT LET THE MINORITIES HAVE ANY POWER; IT’S BETTER IF IT SITS WITH US, THE POWERFUL ONES.

In fairness they were discussing the motion to invite trans women and it was passed by 16 votes to 3 but in any truly equal space, comments like the ones above would have been immediately challenged not “Please see a breakdown of the voting in the attached file as well as the comments people made, some of which it would be good to address.” Why aren’t they resulting in an automatic expulsion for hateful speech?

If the party wasn’t so intent on filling quotas of people they don’t actually care for, we might see their true colours. Recruiting WoC, disabled women and accountants (FFS) seems to be an afterthought and only because the law requires them to. Is there also a law stipulating a trans woman quota? It’d be about the only reason for involving them, based on how they seem to discuss their involvement. Or is it merely a reaction to the discourse around Intersectionality? Are they aware of its rapid growth and feigning compliance to secure votes? Whatever their reasons, I cannot say they have my support.

These are my privileges

Towards the end of last year I was hit with a couple of uncomfortable truths. My immediate reaction was to balk at the suggestions and defend myself with what I thought were righteous assertions. The first, that I as a British Asian woman had the right to feel suspicious of Muslim men as a result of the hounding I had been subjected to my entire life and secondly, there was no way my age could be considered a privilege because I had spent most of those years running away from my complete lack of said privilege. I also hadn’t completely got to grips with my cis privilege and didn’t know how to react to a trans woman of colour attacking me for alienating her. I didn’t know what I had done wrong and felt it was unnecessary. But I was willing to learn. And the reason for this is because I respected the people highlighting these issues with me and I wanted us to feel equal.

I did not want to rubbish the opinions of the people I respect even if my immediate reaction was one of disagreement. It was one of my new found intersectional friends who pointed it out to me. It was easy to reject his analysis because he was a university educated white male and it felt a little bit like control. His manner was unforgiving and he sounded like all the other men who have ever told me I was wrong. I was distrusting of this guy because he felt a university education was not a privilege. Lacking a formal education myself, I disagreed. But then another of my fledgling friends said the same thing. We were from similar backgrounds so when she said it, I had the realisation that I couldn’t ignore this, I would have to tackle my prejudices. I had to realise the world for the vast space that it is. Taking into account the meta narrative, the way in which ethnic minorities and in particular, Islam is portrayed was a good start. We are socialised into feeling a certain way about a group. Growing up, a community of a few hundred Muslim men made my life a misery. Add to this the monstering of Asian men and Islam, especially post 9/11 and it’s hardly surprising I would feel this way. I could not hold billions of people responsible for the community I belonged to. And I should reject the world as it is presented to me by the ruling classes. The predominantly white ruling classes.

The privilege of age was one it took a while to get my head around. I feel like I’ve only really been alive for a couple of years, savouring the little things that make life worth living is a relatively new thing for me. Up until the point of my breakdown I was merely surviving. I resisted the notion that I was privileged just because I’d a few more years on this earth. But then, watching my young friend and the ways in which she is ignored, undermined, caricaturised and only because she was 17, I began to understand what she meant. I made a promise to myself that I would make an extra effort to hear what she had to say, actively giving her a platform before others. It’s difficult because the hierarchical structures we have in place are entrenched in our way of thinking, because we have life experience we are ‘older and wiser’ but this isn’t necessarily true. We can always think and feel a bit better. We do not know everything.

When a trans woman of colour found me on Twitter and flew into a rage before we’d even been introduced, my immediate reaction was one of fear. I didn’t understand what was happening and I was really working on the whole privilege thing so couldn’t understand why she was so angry. I was afraid that I had done/said something but could not recall anything obvious and this worried me. Had I been abusive or dismissive and not noticed? I asked my trans* friends and they explained that as white trans women, life was difficult enough, being a trans woman of colour made you invisible. I was reassured that I had said nothing wrong. I worked at understanding her reaction. I’d been through life feeling as though I didn’t exist and I had been that angry too. To the outside world it might have seemed misplaced but not in my mind. Why couldn’t anyone see me and make it better?

It is your white friends that give you an idea of what it is to feel like a whole person. For a system to work you need compliance. If, from birth, you are treated as less, you will believe it your whole life through. I know I did. It’s why I remained in abusive relationships. It’s why I went out with white men who openly treated me like a brown trophy. It is my white (thoroughly human) friends who made me aware of this. The ways in which we are treated, the things that are said to us are simply intolerable to people have been brought up free (read: white). My friends show me when I am being subtly manipulated or treated in a substandard way. Of course when I am routinely stopped at airports I am instantly aware of how I am being treated differently.

I have always felt the power structure and even though it’s not been in my best interests, I have been somewhat resistant to it. The white saviour men have been washed out of my hair. The white friends who are proud to be British show themselves for the colonial masters that they are.  I was that special Asian, the one white people warmed to “you’re not like all the others”. I had a raging distrust of my own kind; I believed what they said in the papers. Y’see, in this country we get a wave of immigration and all the immigrants that came before are eager to show how they’re not like those work shy scroungers. Britain is at its best when it’s dividing and ruling. And I totally bought it for almost 30 years. I liked being a white pet and enjoyed the privileges it afforded; less overt racism than my peers. My Asian peers didn’t like this; I was accused of wanting to be white.  Luckily for me, I have a conscience and it was only a matter of time before it dawned on me that I was just like the rest and in denying this, was a question of my own integrity.

I also found that a lot of white people will never see you as anything but brown. They are actively encouraged to be proud of their empirical heritage. Like rape, war, genocide is easily forgiven when Britain is so ‘welcoming’ to the people of its former colonies. Mind you behave how they want you to though. You are not allowed a culture, an opinion without it being heavily scrutinised for terrorism. Someone called me a fool recently for saying the white man I had been engaged to was racist. He laughed at me once when I came down wearing a pair of mismatched pyjamas. He thought it was a ‘very Asian’ thing to do. HOW? The white brain thinks all of your quirks are attributed to the colour of your skin. Never mind the fact that he was in my bed, he pointed out every little thing that made me Asian. The hair on my body, the time I rubbed his feet, the bond that I had with my family; ALL ASIAN. When you are that obsessed by someone’s race, it is fair to say you might be racist. Especially when you think having an Asian fiancé is winning one back for the team. Well, those Asian boys love a bit of white meat, it’s only fair. If I hadn’t been seriously mentally unwell at the time, I wouldn’t have given him a second look. I don’t regret it though, he taught me a lot about this world.

I’ve had many a white person challenge the racism I have experienced in the past week. They’ve been looking for the P word or the N word and because they haven’t seen any evidence of it, I must be lying and using the race card. Racism and prejudice is not limited to language but rather the way in which we’re made to experience the world. It’s how they make us feel. There hasn’t been anything unusual about the manner in which I’ve been ridiculed or challenged. It is word for word the same as it has always been. Remember it is not your intention, but how you make somebody feel. If you have any respect or love for your critics, you are willing to change or at least think about it from their angle. My anger and my reactions have come as a result of feeling deeply disrespected and unwanted.

The onus is not on me, the oppressed, to make amends.

Deciphering the Anti Intersectional White Feminists and TERFS

What they say: We are intersectional

What they really mean: We’re not really. We just can’t handle confrontation or admit we are actual bigots because we know we will get into trouble for it.

—————–

What they say: Am against anyone being forced off Twitter.

What they mean: Not really. Just other white people like me.

—————–

What they say: I was bullied off by those nasty IFs

What they mean: It is much easier to shut everything down so they can’t storify/bug me. I’ll let my men deal with them.

——————

What they say: I’m not racist.

What they mean: Yes I am but how on earth are you gonna prove it Brownie?

——————

What they say: We must give a platform to TERFs

What they mean: I am a transphobe

——————

What they say: This is an example of how privilege checking is bullshit

What they mean: We’re going to ignore all the white people who have made much more radical and revolutionary points and make an example of the disabled WoC because it’s so damn easy in this kyriarchy

—————–

What they say: WoC are welcome in this wave of feminism

What they mean: Well, how else can we shut them up?

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What they say: Stop subtweeting, it’s bullying!

What they mean: We can subtweet all we like but we don’t like seeing anything that might be challenging us. It hurts our feels. We prefer to go behind people’s backs than deal with a confrontation. We’re cowardly like that.

——————

What they say: I don’t know Helen other than as someone I follow on Twitter, and she didn’t ask me to do the Storify. I just didn’t like what I saw happening.

What they mean: Sick to the back teeth of these intersectional feminists and their threats to my privileged white seat in the patriarchy. White power!

——————–

What they say: She’s stalking me, she’s written x amount of blogs in which she mentions me! She is weird

What they mean: Only I, as a white woman with considerable privilege, am allowed to stalk people I don’t know. I’m justified; they’re challenging my white supremacy. Don’t retaliate by doing the same, have you no shame brownie?

———————

What they say: On hearing RadFem2013 has been cancelled “Women who object to women only spaces have likely a) never been in one or b) worry about including teh menz. Good allies would stay away”

What they mean: Those men pretending to be women should just stay the fuck out of ‘women only’ spaces. They aren’t our allies if this is what they’re doing

———————-

What they say: I’m truly on the fence here

What they mean: I’m not. I want to scream at all the IFs to leave my white TERF feminism alone but I want to hear what you all have to say before I agree.

———————-

What they say: I’m a WoC and I don’t see any of the privilege you speak of

What they mean: I’m alright Jack, stop speaking for me.

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What they’ve bee saying to me: Have you twitter flounced. How brave!

What they mean: Revenge is sweet. Even if untruthful.

———————-

What they say: Bullied in to submission. Good girl. Know your place.

What they mean: Revenge is sweet. Even if untruthful.

———————–

What they say: When the going gets tough, the weak get going.

What they mean: Revenge is sweet. Even if untruthful.

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*I quite like ‘IF‘. Let’s use it.

IF feminism had been intersectional from the start, we’d be a lot closer to equality

IF white people would acknowledge their extremely privileged position in this world, maybe we could all be equal.

IF we were all equal, we might put an end to Imperialism.

———————–

TERF: Anti Intersectional Trans Exlusionary Rad Fems

Note: We have many white allies and we work together towards the same goals.

This is how I experience the world around me. Instead of questioning my honesty, try seeing it this way for a bit.

How would you feel if this was your reality?

People keep asking me why only white transphobes. It’s because I don’t know any non white ones. Yet.

Twitter is the real world

I deleted Twitter last night after I found I couldn’t silence my own opinion. I deleted it because all the things I have been accused have been perpetrated by all of my critics but they have stifled any retaliation. They are bigger in numbers and their actions trigger a collage of white voices; manipulative and powerful.

When I first joined Twitter, I unfollowed anyone RT’ing the EDL into my timeline. I wasn’t being ignorant but trying to protect myself from mental harm. I don’t belong in this country and I found, after visiting the ‘homeland’, I didn’t belong there either. As a 31 year old woman, I am still affected by the subtle ways in which WoC are controlled. It is very easy to monster us and depict us as damaged and untrustworthy, heck, we’re so often used in this way, we start believing it.

Tell me how, any woman claiming to be intersectional can allow discourse that alienates another woman? Why is it EVER ok to allow TERF voices into an intersectional movement? Because they are women we must listen to their bigoted views and allow them that power? If trans* women are fair game, how long before they allow similar discussions for WoC? Cos that’s how they used to talk about us y’know? TERF allies can lie until they’re blue in the face that they are intersectional but when they haven’t grasped the very basic concept of TRUE EQUALITY for ALL WOMEN, which means zero tolerance of ‘other-ing’ any woman, they are the facilitators of oppression. I’ve been watching them for some months now. They gush and eat cake and use the word sister without the slightest hint of irony. Then they stab you in the back. Mendacity is not a feature of my feminism.

This behaviour affects me so because I have had a lifetime of it. ‘Sister’ doesn’t mean anything in my world. Unless you fall into line, pray to the same God, ask your oppressors for forgiveness for your clearly demented individual ways, nobody is interested. You are not allowed to challenge, or grow, or make amends. And that’s what’s happening right now. Growing up, I was the minority voice. I was bullied and beaten for acting like “a white girl”. Today, I am facing the same again; I am a minority WoC. I am a minority ally of trans/non gender binary comrades. I am the antithesis of the mainstream white rationale and reasoning. And I am glad.

The hypocrisy of the last few weeks is not lost on me. There is nothing honourable about these people. When you have the privilege of a position that allows you an opinion and then PAYS you for making it, it’s a given that criticism is part and parcel of the package. The commentariat get PAID to use an immense platform. They remind me of spoilt film actors, playing the camera when it suits them and then bemoaning their lack of privacy when they inevitably fuck up. I don’t get paid to do anything. I do it because it is my reality and I have no choice. But I also cannot handle the onslaught of abuse I have been subjected to. I managed a week of engaging, of methodically deleting every comment calling me a whore. Do you know how mentally exhausting it is to be abused on a daily basis? I didn’t ‘flounce’, that’s what white women do when they can’t be bothered to engage you anymore and want it to look like they’ve been bullied off (remember: manipulation). I chose to delete my account before I said something really hurtful. Hurtful because it is painfully true.

I started doing Twitter because I had a cause. I found some wonderful people who now exist in the real world. These are the allies I’m going to continue to work with. I will never forget the rest of you though, I will remember your faces and your thoughts and when you fuck up, as you inevitably will (just like we all do but some of us are more allowed to than others) I will be there. I will be watching.

I am disengaging for today but that doesn’t mean I am gone forever. I am waiting for the bullshit to subside and for intersectionality to rise up again. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

What I learnt this week

On the 23^rd January 2013 I made a terrible mistake. It was a duvet day because I was in a fair bit of pain due to a spinal injury. I knocked a cocktail of drugs back and settled under the covers so I could Twitter. After a skim read of the timeline, I posed a tweet to Mary Beard. I mistakenly accused her of racism. Out of nowhere I was met with a tweet from Helen Lewis who demanded I prove it. Still none the wiser to my mistake, Helen’s tweet got my back up. It’s what they say when they know your proof won’t matter. But Helen had prompted me to think about what I had just tweeted and so I thought I had better make sure.

On realising exactly how big a mistake I made, I immediately apologised. I wasn’t cajoled, I wasn’t defiant, I was honest. And I believed I deserved the fallout taking over my mentions. I bowed my head in shame but I was determined to turn it into a positive thing. I was grateful for the amicable respectful exchanges between me and Mary. I chose not to delve too deeply into what people were saying about me, I didn’t have the spoons. After many requests from fellow tweeters, Helen agreed to delete the storified set of events. I thought it was because she understood that I had meant no malice. I also thought she might have understood that even though she was fighting with my peers on all matters regarding intersectionality, this incident was separate. It wasn’t in any way connected with her other battles. But she saw an opportunity. If she could make an example of how terribly wrong it can sometimes go, it maintains the power structure and status quo. Rather we have 100000s of ethnics suffer real racism than let one white person be wrongly accused.

On the 15^th April 2013, I found that Helen’s storify piece was still online. I was stunned. Why would someone agree to delete something only to republish without ever informing you? What were her intentions? When I went to ask her, I discovered I was blocked. After a while I was made aware it was something to do with a blog and the storify had been up for a couple of weeks. My friends politely asked her to reconsider and instead, she left Twitter. It was only when she’d done this that I saw she’d written a piece that day. I still haven’t read it because people believe the ‘bullying’ she received in response to the piece was the reason she ‘flounced’. It wasn’t. It’s because she was challenged and she couldn’t justify what she’d done. I hadn’t blogged about her; I just tagged her on a criticism of a New Statesman piece.

She wants to silence intersectionality. That’s what the offending blog was about. A NS writer had pondered on the least privileged women of them all and I had nominated my mother. It was heartfelt and for that, Helen Lewis decided I’d take the bullet. How many of us have discussed intersectionality in recent months? Why is a 3 month old incident being dredged up to prove her point that privilege is being silenced? Am I the best argument you have against true equality? “Don’t listen to those stupid deranged idiots, they lie or they make things up.”  Except I didn’t lie, I made a mistake. One I publicly acknowledged and apologised for.

But she has her allies. Anya Palmer seems to want to stalk my every move on Twitter. She never speaks to me, just hangs over my shoulder, waiting for the money shot. She seems to revel in the fact that the incident caused me embarrassment. Of course it would, I don’t make a habit of hurting people unnecessarily.  There have been all manner of eggs tweeting racist, ableist, sexist shit at me, somehow strengthening my resolve against all who seek to undermine me. The course of events has quickly spiralled into the honest truth of it all. My feminism is not their feminism. Mine is intersectional. Theirs is bullshit. Their feminism is about: never changing, never thinking, denying privilege as if it’s a zero sum game. All positions are positions of privilege- like the way racing cars start on a sliding scale. You could have the fastest car in the world, but if you’re last you’re gonna have to pull a miracle out of the bag to make it work. I may have had an abusive childhood but I also fit the patriarchal ideal of a cis gendered woman. I may have not had a formal education but I can grasp new concepts without too much trouble. Some people can walk through life carrying their baggage, some people are crushed by it, just getting up in the morning brings back painful memories and triggers etc.  It’s also about justifying using hurtful words because they can’t be bothered to think about their power.

The Mean Girls piece spoke of scary wimminz who attack well known wimminz and we shouldn’t cos sisterhood and that. Well, when we attack the famous ones, we have a few hundred people at most fighting our corner. When the commentariat attack us little people, they have many more thousands poised to crush us. That, my friend, is privilege. All of the arguments the non-intersectional feminists have made in recent months regarding solidarity and the bigger picture, fuck that. This incident has proven that it is not so much we’re all in this together but they will actively stifle any dissent. Just like my mothers and grandmothers before me. “Pipe down now brownie”.

When Helen Lewis showed us words she’d been called, it transpired that she had been searching for her name (lurking, again) and discovered two feminist women using gendered slurs.  Two tweets she had to go looking for. Two WOMEN she was not afraid to make an example of. When I received tweets, they were from accounts set up to hound me, mainly men. I’ve had lot of white ‘opinions’ on this. All of them have also referred to me as some kind of cunt or whore. A few think it’s ok to mock me for my disabilities. And all of them simply do not get, why I, as a woman of colour would feel this in any way than every other time a white person has made me feel shit. I had 5000 views of my blog the other day. Imagine how many comments. People are also searching for information on my family and ex partners names.  It is telling that Helen’s most vocal advocate is a prolific misogynist hellbent on securing an apology from me. If at one time I would have considered approaching this is in a calm and reasonable manner to make amends with my cisters, that opportunity is long gone. The commentariat are quick to identify and expose dissenters, launching their mobs at us with full force but somehow, condemning abuse from a misogynist would be drawing unnecessary attention to us. They suggest they are ‘protecting us’ by not calling out abusive behaviour committed by the patriarchy against another woman.

Nice one Helen Lewis, solidarity from one feminist to another feminist on an entirely even keel in this fuck up a world.

Smash the Kyriarchy

Google ‘Sam Ambreen and Helen Lewis’ and you will see various blogs written by both of us but also two other names. One of them is a prolific misogynist whose life’s purpose seems to be undermining the feminist cause and the other, a woman. Apparently she’s a lawyer called Anya Palmer.

How am I supposed to feel about this? In terms of intersectionality, there is a very definite ‘us’ and ‘them’ and right now the ‘them’ is a coalition of those two. Each has an agenda to slander and vilify me as a lying, manipulative woman of colour. This is about the easiest representation of a kyriarchy I have come across.

Elevatorgate wants feminism to disappear so he spends his time trawling through the net seeking ways in which to damage the movement. Anya Palmer wants to discredit ME as an intersectional woman of colour and so she employs the same tactics as the former, loosely stringing together the worst bits of the whole incident, storifying and screencapping the shite out of anything I say. Challenge Anya and she blocks you.

These people don’t want discussion, they just don’t want us.

I see no difference in the two.

Smash the kyriarchy. Smash it all.

Still I Rise

I have been seeing a therapist coming on 3 years. That’s how long I guess it takes to fix a breakdown. I’ve had cognitive behavioural therapy to unwrite the pathways in my head and process life in a way that means I won’t just stop breathing. I used to do that quite frequently and without realising. It’s only when my head would swim or I’d get hit with pangs of nausea that I’d notice I’d been sat holding my breath. The resultant sensations would make me want to self-harm and that was my life for a couple of years until the therapy started to take hold.

After the Mary Beard incident, I was really excited to see my therapist. I wanted to tell her how well I’d coped. Coping is something I’ve been learning to do. Years of being silenced, of being disbelieved left me unable to deal with the most basic of situations. Without therapy, the mistake I’d made would have finished me. I would not have been able to admit that I had done something wrong because the toxic shame that feels like internal bleeding would have rendered me incapable. Instead I would think of all the worthless valueless things I’d been called and would take it as confirmation that I must be those things. I wouldn’t have thought to apologise because I would have believed that my apology would be of no consequence and instead would be used against me as a sign of weakness. I really believe this is why Caitlin Moran finds it so impossible.

But I did apologise. Admittedly I experienced the initial gut churning realisation that I had made a monumental mistake but I also knew that I could overcome it. I understood that I could learn from this. I acknowledged we all make mistakes, sometimes catastrophic. It is how we deal with them that makes all the difference. I’m not infallible. I do my best to empathise and I want to understand everything, that’s why I have this need for transparency. So I steeled myself for the fallout. I hadn’t, however, banked on being made an example of when privilege politics gone wrong in a move orchestrated to discredit our progression as intersectional feminists striving for equality for all, not just the white cis commentariat.

I apologised to Mary Beard because I had offended HER. I wasn’t ‘called out’; I was jumped on by someone with their own nasty agenda. Weeks of being shown for the bigots they are and the first time once of us slips up, it’s time to take us all down. I didn’t wait for someone to point out my mistake, I realised it myself and did what I could to make amends. First and foremost, I immediately apologised on Twitter. I also blogged it. I started following Mary because I wanted to learn more about her, and she followed me too. I wanted to learn from this experience. I thought about it many times in the weeks to come, that old cringe that creeps up on you just as you’re about to fall asleep. But it also made me think of how I’ve always felt uncomfortable calling out racism, because of the way it can be turned back on us. In this instance I’d got it so very wrong. But it reminded me of the time a workmate would sing “there’s a brown girl in the room” whenever I’d walk through the door. Or the white ex-boyfriend who told me it didn’t matter how much white people allied themselves with non-whites, most of Britain is the Daily Mail variety. In doing so he’d further compounded the paranoia that brown people like me feel whenever we are in white company. It could be anyone.

Helen acknowledged that I had made an error due to ill health. She would have made this decision because, before the incident that day, I had actually been tweeting the pain I was in. I have a spinal injury and complex PTSD. There was no excuse for my false allegation which is why an apology was made in full. Understanding privilege does not give people the right say and do what they like but it does give people some idea as to WHY something happened. And it provides the platform for respectful discussion. It doesn’t take away the harm perpetrated which is why I wanted to ask for forgiveness. I didn’t do a Caitlin and block my critics, I listened. When the brain fog takes over I try not to succumb to it. I want to understand and compartmentalise what happened and so I take it apart. I realised then that Helen was going to make a show of me. But I also knew it was a very tenuous link she was making and that I was an easy target. This isn’t the first time I’ve been scapegoated. In fact, it is a part of my disorder!

To randomly come across a Storify that I was assured would be deleted was disheartening to say the least. I didn’t understand why it was back up. I thought it was underhanded and kicked myself for trusting someone who had clearly wanted to vilify me. Why was it still there? Only I couldn’t ask Helen because she’d already blocked me. Through dribs and drabs of incoherent tweeting, I saw that she was unhappy about a blog I’d written. I wracked my brain thinking about where I might have offended her. I’d mentioned Mary in a couple of blogs but no real link to Helen anywhere. And then, I saw someone mention the post “There’s no point in online feminism if it’s not intersectional”.

I don’t talk about her at all. In fact her name is tagged on the post but I don’t specifically mention her. I do take objection to the author of the Mean Girls post though. In a debunking of her outrageously misogynistic piece in where she admits to wanting to behave like teh menz, she wrote some very damaging things about the feminist movement. It is my right to debunk a piece which is given a platform like the New Statesman. Did Helen take offence because she was the one who published it? Whatever her reasons, how can she justify republishing something she said she would take down because of the circumstances of that particular day? Am I not allowed to have an opinion now? If, in the future, I am racially abused, can you all discredit me with this one example of when I got it wrong? I’m not super human; I will probably make more mistakes. But I will damn well try to understand why they happened and how I can prevent them from happening again.

Why aren’t we allowed to learn and grow from our mistakes? When is it ever ok for a woman in Helen’s position to falsify a set of events and present them in a way that will encourage people to abuse me? There’s a set of people eager to point out how stupid I am and also the ableist bunch who think I am lying about my health. Or if I’m not lying about my health, then I should refrain from having an opinion. Move over Harry Potter, I need your cupboard under the stairs.

This is why we’re doing the intersectional thing folks. We’re giving those people you wanna shut up a voice. I’ve had enough of silencing. That’s why I’m ok with Helen leaving her skewed version of events up. This incident has strengthened my belief in the cause more than ever before. These are the people we are fighting. They are not our allies. If they were any good at feminism the last time round, i.e. including women like my mother and trans women like my many wonderful friends, we wouldn’t still be in this shit heap of a patriarchy.

When the patriarchy attacks my female critics, they have an ally in me. When their allies attack me, they call me a ‘cunt’. My feminist critics make an example of me.

WE ARE NOT ON THE SAME SIDE.

Dredging up a 3 month old incident is not good journalism, it’s desperate.

Whatever you do, don’t make a mistake, and NEVER trust a cister

Helen Lewis once storified a set of tweets but left out the connecting bits that made a bit more sense of my very senseless allegations of racsim against Mary Beard. She reassured me at the time it would be deleted because unfortunately I am a spoonie and take 3 different meds that can have an affect on the way I’m thinking some days. She acknowledged my health. She acknowledged my apology. She also left out some of the tweets which was part of the argument I had with her when she first published it. The published set of tweets look they’re from somebody deranged (any yes, I’ve totally been there) and because of who she is, she can now undermine ANYTHING I have to say about feminism. I made one mistake that didn’t even fucking concern her and she can now use it against me when she PREVIOUSLY SAID SHE WOULDN’T.

Don’t you think I felt humiliated and enough of an idiot on discovering my own mistake? I dunno about Helen but I try not to be a shithead about things. If I hurt someone, I apologise. If I need to learn a lesson, I damn well will. But Helen doesn’t believe in restitution. She’d rather hang me in the stocks and leave me there forever.

Just because you’re having a hard time accepting your immense fucking privileges, how can you then use them to shit on someone far less privileged like me? I wish I had your platform Helen, I fucking do.

Leave it up for all to see Helen, don’t be the bigger person even though society knows your name over mine. And you know the privileges that affords. If people want the truth they can read it here.

In my world, we make up for when we did wrong and resolve conflict with respect. I thought I had done so with the person I’d hurt but apparently it was Helen Lewis who deserved to be so pissed off about it. Not lovely kind Mary who accepted my apology and should never have had to deal with what I said to her. No Helen, this is all about you. Sigh. It’s really not though is it?

Don’t hijack this to cover your anti intersectional sins.

You can make an example of me all you like, you’re still a shit feminist.